Since its inception, biometric sensing technology, such as fingerprint sensing, has revolutionized identification and authentication processes. The ability to capture and store biometric data in a digital file of minimal size has yielded immense benefits in fields such as law enforcement, forensics, and information security.
Utilizing fingerprints in a biometric authentication process typically includes storing one or more fingerprint images captured by a fingerprint sensor as a fingerprint template for later authentication. During the authentication process, a newly acquired fingerprint image is received and compared to the fingerprint template to determine whether there is a match. Before the newly acquired fingerprint image can be compared to the fingerprint template, the newly acquired fingerprint image is aligned by performing a transformation to the newly acquired fingerprint image. The transformation may include one or more of rotation, translation (in two dimensions), and scaling of the newly acquired fingerprint image. This process is known as image alignment, which can be a time consuming stage in the biometric matching process. Fast matching is important for many applications, while determining the correct alignment is important for providing accurate biometric match results.